1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to the manufacture of furniture in general, and in particular, to the manufacture of glue-laminated or “engineered” bamboo furniture in which the ends of bamboo board furniture components are hidden from view.
2. Related Art
Conventionally, bamboo furniture is made using wood or engineered bamboo boards or artificial “particle” boards (i.e., medium density compression-glued fiber or particle boards and the like) as substrates, to which thin decorative veneers, laminates and end sealing strips are then applied for cosmetic appearance. Since solid wood furniture consumes a relatively large amount of timber, the development of the furniture industry is constrained by the scarcity of available timber resources. The use of artificial boards in furniture therefore makes for a more efficient use of scarce timber resources. However, because more adhesive, and hence, more formaldehyde, is used in producing this type of furniture, this can also result in furniture that is not environmentally friendly, and in some cases, potentially harmful to human health.
Bamboo resources are currently very abundant in China. In the prior art, glue-laminated (“gluelam” or so-called “engineered bamboo”) furniture typically incorporates one of two types of construction. As illustrated in FIGS. 1 and 2, the first type of furniture is made of artificial boards (e.g., medium density fiber or particle boards) used as substrates, to which bamboo veneers and edge strips having a thickness from about 0.3 mm to about 0.6 mm are applied.
The process for manufacturing furniture of this type is as follows. First, a bamboo veneer 10 is bonded on upper and lower surfaces of an artificial board substrate 20 with an adhesive. Then, the laminated substrate is pressed in a hot-press to cure the adhesive. After the adhesive is cured, the pressed laminated substrate is removed from the press and bamboo veneer strips 30 are bonded on the edges of the board 20 by an edge banding tool, thereby forming a finished panel 40. Finally, legs or panel supports 50 made of, e.g., steel or other materials, are then connected to the panel 40, thereby completing the desired article of furniture, e.g., a table. However, furniture panels 40 made in accordance with the foregoing process tend to warp easily in humidity and to produce unsightly bubbles on their surfaces, and further, the sealing strips on the edges of the panels are easily delaminated and stripped away from the panels, such that furniture incorporating such panels is not durable or practical.
As illustrated in FIGS. 3 and 4, the second type of furniture is made of panels of flat pressed glue-laminated bamboo boards or strips having a rectangular cross-section, in which the long dimension of the cross-section is disposed either horizontally (FIG. 3) or vertically (FIG. 4), with the same surface finish treatments as the particle board furniture panel 40 described above in connection with FIGS. 1 and 2. As illustrated in FIGS. 3 and 4, the article of furniture is finished by connecting supports 50 to the panel 40. This type of furniture not only consumes more timber materials, but as will be appreciated by reference to FIGS. 3 and 4, the ends of the bamboo boards of the panels 40 are exposed, which adversely impacts the aesthetic appearance of the furniture. Further, panels 40 made with this type of construction are weak in resisting deformation and warp easily in humidity, so that furniture incorporating such panels is not practical.